Santa Cruz Sentinel: No on Measure M: Housing Needed for People
The Santa Cruz city ballot Measure M was in the works for many months under the signature gathering nomenclature, “Housing for People.”
Not surprisingly, in a town where housing is an expensive commodity and where citizens have long loathed outside development and any changes in the local ethos that encouraged a Silicon Valley vibe, adherents had no trouble gathering the 7,000 qualified signatures to place the measure on the March 5 ballot.
While many residents may not understand the wonky details of Measure M, the basic parameters would seem hard to argue with: Limit the ability of the city to permit super-tall buildings, especially in a downtown already in the throes of change, without a vote of the people. The measure also would raise the city’s affordable housing inclusionary rate from 20% to 25% for developments with 30 or more units.
Critics say the measure plays into the city’s well traversed ground of NIMBYism, but backers say, no, it won’t mean badly needed new and affordable housing won’t be built, only that voters would get to decide on whether new buildings in bigger projects would be allowed to be built higher than permitted.
(The arguments of proponents are summarized in an accompanying Guest Commentary on this page advocating a Yes on M vote.)
The ultimate impacts, however, of this measure will inevitably make it more difficult to create denser development, especially in downtown Santa Cruz, where the city wants to concentrate on building the housing the state is requiring, which is one reason we recommend a No vote on Measure M.
Should that happen, the city would have little choice but to look to more residential neighborhoods for the kind of building density needed to meet the requirements.
Downtown, specifically the south of Laurel Street area, is actually the preferable location for this kind of development, and for an expanded basketball facility for the Santa Cruz Warriors. Holding the threat of expensive elections over projects, however, would potentially raise costs and even cause some developers to back away from proposed projects.
Which, while Measure M proponents aren’t saying it, is kind of the point. With an estimated 3,000 housing units already in the planning process, 1,200 of these in the 29-acre area south of Laurel, and some 46 larger-scale projects in active application, that’s a lot of new development.
Terms such as “density bonus” and “builder’s remedy” are part of the back-and-forth discussion on this measure. The “density bonus” refers to the state law that allows an increase in the allowed number of dwelling units or building height in exchange for the provision of affordable housing. Many local governments favor the density bonus as a helpful tool to cut through their land-use requirements and local political realities such as NIMBYism. But the bonus could allow mostly “affordable” projects to go even higher than current plans, perhaps as high as 16 stories.
The “builder’s remedy” refers to how a city of county must approve a housing development proposal, regardless of local zoning, if that jurisdiction does not meet the state’s housing element requirements. Should, say, Santa Cruz not be found in compliance with meeting the state and regionally required housing element of 3,736 units at specific affordability levels, then the latter ostensibly could be invoked, thus leading, say M opponents, to even more density and higher buildings.
A lot of this may fly past voters not in compliance with planning regulations and state laws. But what should be paramount is that there remains major issues with homelessness in the city, along with soaring rental costs and a lack of workforce housing.
“Growth” and “development” have long been dirty words in Santa Cruz. No one wants to see 18-story buildings towering over lower downtown. But the dirtier reality is that the city has become an unaffordable enclave for too many of its working residents and those without the means to buy multi-million-dollar homes or pay rents far beyond what they take home in their paychecks.
There’s a reason why almost every housing advocate in the city and county opposes this measure and why a recent city-commissioned analysis of the measure’s impacts pointed out its many, perhaps unintended, consequences.
Vote No on Measure M and allow more housing for more people.